[Renato Lemus]

This is what I've found out based on my own experience using maxwell:

?’s:
1: Does poly count effect render times?
-much less than it would in MentalRay. Besides it saves you a lot of memory. I have found that Maxwell can render big scenes that lead MentalRay to crash.
2: Does the set’s size effect render times?
- Yes.

3: I saw some benchmark tests on this board, but they only used diffused materials. Does SSS, Dielectric, or Glossy Metals effect the render times?
-Yes, it takes harder to get a clean image, because this materials introduce a lot of noise.

4: The manual says that Caustics from glossy metals will slow down the renderer. How bad?
- In general , glossy materials affect the rendertime because they introduce noise.

5: The manual says that DOF and Motion Blur does not effect the render times. Is this true?
-yes, as it is an integral part of the final image, actually, every image you render with maxwell will have certain amount of DOF, you control this as you'd normally do with a real camera.

6: While rendering out an animation is there any noticeable popping (similar to the flicker created by mental ray’s photon maps or final gathering). I can live with noise, but not popping.
-No popping, nor flickering. The worst thing you can see is a fixed noise pattern in your animations, like if the movie was projected on a noisy surface.

7: I use a fur plug-in that allows me to export the fur as polys, but I read somewhere that you shouldn’t have really small polys because they will cause bad noise problems. Is this true?
-It's the same as in no. 1. the more polys, the longer rendertimes.

8: I’ve read that there is an anti-aliasing problem with objects behind a Dielectric material, but I haven’t been able to find any images that show this problem. Does this problem exist?
-Yes, but it isn't an AA problem and not in all cases, but sometimes you can see blurred objects through glass. I haven't done several images with objects behind glass, but I've heard some people have this issue.

9: The manual says that interior’s take longer then a skydome. About how much longer?
-Much longer. If there are not enough light coming to the camera, it's going to be harder to get a clean noiseless image. That's because interiors are sometimes very hard to clean.

I hope that list isn’t too long. I’ve been reading this board and many other sites, but I’m on a 56k line, so I haven’t been able to look up everything. From everything I’ve read it seems the renderer is just as stable as the one I use now (mental ray), so I’m not that worried about that. Don’t get me wrong, I love me mental ray, but currently it takes me 10 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes per frame. I can’t use motion blur or DOF and the only way to get rid of those dang jagged lines is to turn up the samples so high that I’d be waiting forever to get a frame done. Plus MR likes to crash all the time due to the number of prams created by my fur plug-in. I’ve been looking for an alternative for awhile now and I understand that I will need to get a render farm. I’m just trying to get an idea of how big it will be. I’ll still be using my 720x389 resolution with a frame rate of 24 fps. Scene sizes range anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 polys.

But remember that maxwell is Beta. There will be lots of improvements in the final release.
I hope this can help you. Anyone wants to add something?

[Kabe]

Well, one further comment, exspecially if you are doing animations:

Image size affects render times quite a bit. So if you have small frame sizes, you could get away with decent render times.

Decent in the context of M~R translates to 5-30 minute a frame, so don't expect to compete on a render speed level anytime in the foreseeable future.

Kabe

[haiti]

imanobody send for my email your scene in format obj i try test
my email is agrup900@hotmail.com

[Mihai]

What are the values on the white mat of the walls? It seems too white.

[Ric_535]

i like a challenge i'll give it a go too!

[Ric_535]

Dont hold your breath

[Ric_535]

[2h 0m 9s] of [166h 40m 0s] , current sampling level : 15.53 (640x480)

Shall post it after 4 hours (bathroom scene - just white)

[Ric_535]

Wow, thats not bad. But, this makes me wonder why Adam's time was so long when he has a much faster computer. I would guess that it's either the number of lights, type of light in the window, or the materials (that narrows it down to about the whole scene ). If this was MR, I would say that it's the reflections or glossy materials, but I don't know with this renderer, it seems to do things in a totally different manner.

So what materials render the fastest and has the least noise? Am I right in thinking that once the light bounce doesn't see an object, it speeds up the render times? I've got a thought formulating in my head, but I'll have to work it out on the calculator tonight before I'll know if it will work.

i am using just physical sky to render with (i knocked the glass out of the windows ), no lights are on inside the room, i am using walls - rgb - 209,209,209 which is lower than adams

it is now on level 16.89 yet is still quite noisy, its only a small res - 640 by 480, i'll post it shortly on the 4 hr mark

obviuosly it would take longer (by how much i dont know) with all materials

Am I right in thinking that once the light bounce doesn't see an object, it speeds up the render times?

im not quite sure what you mean by this

[Ric_535]

Quote:
Am I right in thinking that once the light bounce doesn't see an object, it speeds up the render times?


im not quite sure what you mean by this

Yea, I did a pretty lousy job of explaining that.

What I was trying to ask is that if you had a room with one light and it took 3 hours to get to 15. If you knocked out two walls, so the light could escape, would it render much faster? I'm thinking as long as the light is bouncing, its doing calculations - but, once it doesn't hit an object anymore, it terminates that light bounce. Less light bounces, faster the image will render.

I don't know if Maxwell has it, or if it even needs its, but it seem that it would be nice to have a material that would kill a light bounce so you could speed up the rendering. I do something similar to this in MR when I'm dealing with photons; I'll apply a shader that will suck up any photon that hits it. I have to use this every once in awhile with large sets because the photons will sometimes loose their mind and get the renderer into a loop.

i see what you mean, but with interiors as i light them with physical sky it helps to have 4 walls so the light can replicate real a life situaltion where light bounces off the walls. im not sure it would look quite right of you knocked out a wall, dunno really

Here is my image after 4 hours - level 17.28, my brother just came in and told me adams looks a lot better maybe i'll try it again with a different view and turn some lights on inside



there are some issues with a black area also i'd say this image needs a lot more time to clean up